For musicians, the skies are usually unfriendly -- but one singer gets revenge

Long about the 3.8-millionth time this video turned up on a computer screen, I bet someone at United Airlines thought, "Maybe we should have just given the guy his $1,200. Or $12,000. Or $12 million."

Dave Carroll, a musician from Nova Scotia, was traveling to a gig in Nebraska last year with his band. In the inexplicable absence of Halifax-to-Omaha nonstops, they had to pause in Chicago, and when they looked out the window at the tarmac they saw baggage handlers essentially playing rugby with guitar cases.

Carroll's $3,500 Taylor took a $1,200 hit. When United wouldn't pay for the damage, he decided to write and produce three songs about his exasperating experience.

The first of them, formally known as "United: Song 1" but otherwise referred to as "United Breaks Guitars," has become a phenomenon. Carroll has been featured on Fox News and "The Today Show," and in short order, one singer and three guys in sombreros have pretty much nullified United's entire advertising budget.

I've never traveled with an instrument bigger than a kazoo, but I found myself wondering how real musicians protect their investments and livelihoods.

Come to find out, it's a subject of much thought and concern. Experienced players can tell you which brand of jetliner can accommodate a bass trombone in an overhead bin (Airbus) and which will force you to put your baby in the baggage hold (Boeing).

They can quote Transportation Security Administration regulations -- smaller stringed instruments can be stowed, most brass instruments can't -- and advise on the best way to buckle a cello into the seat you'd better go ahead and shell out the money for.

An ordeal at airport security

Instrument-wise, I figured I might as well start small, with flutist Alexander Zonjic.

When he flies, he carries his flute in a case in his lap. It's the Chihuahua of woodwinds. But even that's a more touchy process than you might think.

"Going through inspection with it, it's always a trip," he says. Expensive as his flute is, it's still just a bunch of tubes, and to the untrained eye it apparently seems menacing.

"I'd love to have a nickel for every time I'm asked, 'What's in here?' " says Zonjic, 58, who lives in Windsor. "You'd like it to be a nice, big, macho instrument, but you have to say, 'That would be my flute, sir.' "

Then the inspector wants to open the case, "and you don't want to yell at the guy, but they're always holding it upside down."

In the old days, Zonjic says, you could practically wheel a pipe organ onto a plane. When he played with Bob James' orchestra, they'd grease a skycap with a $50 bill and check 60 huge cases full of equipment. The downside came at the other end: "If the handlers saw a big, heavy-looking case coming at 'em, they'd just let it fall to the ground."

Nowadays, with excess baggage fees and tougher cargo restrictions, Zonjic's band leaves the heavy equipment at home and the promoter provides it where they're playing. The instruments and accessories might not be as familiar, but they have fewer dents.

Paying for first-class pays off

Yo-Yo Ma once left his cello in a taxi. But you can bet it arrived at that point without a scratch.

Frank Bonucci, the stage manager for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, says he sympathizes with Carroll and his repair bill. But when the DSO rolls out, the stakes are higher.

"We're dealing with million-dollar instruments," he says. For domestic performances, they're packed in special cases -- some with interior air bladders, some encased in 4 inches of foam -- and shipped in a climate-controlled, 53-foot semi. For overseas trips, they fly in a 747 configured exclusively for cargo.

When the musicians travel on their own, he says, they'll buy an extra seat for any instrument that won't fit overhead and for some that will. Upright basses are a growing concern; some airlines simply won't let them into the cabin. The best bet at this point, he says, is to drive, though that's difficult if the gig is in Hawaii.

Rocker Troy Gregory of Oak Park was touring with the Dirtbombs last year, and the electric bass he'd owned since he was 13 made it safely through Australia and New Zealand. The last leg of the trip was Serbia to Malaga, Spain, with a layover in Budapest.

Along with the rest of his luggage, the bass and its special, reinforced travel case never made it to Spain. When the case finally followed him to the United States a week later, it was empty.

With no bass and no money or heart to buy another, Gregory, 42, quit the band. He also called Malev Airlines, the pride of Hungary, trying to find out where on its many stops the case was looted.

"Sorry, sir," he was told. "No one here speaks English."

"Well," he said, "I understand you." But there was no satisfaction -- and no instrument -- to be had.

Maybe it's time to pick up his guitar and find a translator. What's Hungarian for "Malev Loses Basses"?

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